Lemon Drops
by I love Neville
Summary: Snape sees someone at the store, and his false sense of security comes crashing down. My first try at an angsty fic.


He was gaping at her, and he knew that. But he still couldn't believe it. After all those years, all those painful, horrible, heart-wrenching years she still looked the same. Her cold, black eyes still clouded with jealousy, her mind with gossip, and that same expression of distaste and absolute anger that she always had when she saw him.

This time, however, the bitter feelings were not directed at him, but at a small, skinny, bespectacled boy with a thick mop of messy black hair. His hair looked like it had recently been forced into the same style as the large, blonde blob of a boy in the cart, but had grown back rather quickly and, in a way, quite violently. (It was a pudding bowl cut, which was popular with purebloods, and, apparently, Muggles, but was something that he absolutely despised.)

This poor child couldn't have been more than five or six, yet the woman was looking at him like you would a chef that gave you food poisoning; with loathing and disgust.

"Aunt Petoonia! I can't keep up!" the boy toddled over to the cart, out of breath.

At that moment, the man's weak fortress built of disbelief, Firewhiskey and lies came crashing down around him, and the suddenly weak and vulnerable Severus Snape was left cold and alone, with only the bag of lemon drops that Dumbledore had sent him to get in the first place left to protect him.

He nervously approached her, as she was yelling at the small child about being more like a "Dudders", whatever that was. That couldn't possibly be the name of the smug lump of a boy in the cart, could it? That name was atrocious! Surely even Petunia, he decided, couldn't possibly be that cruel.

"Petunia?" Snape asked, "Petunia Evans, is it really you?"

Petunia Dursley's head sprang up like a rocket when she heard the man speak. She knew that voice. How could she not? How could she not know the voice of that freak? The one that replaced her? The one that laughed at her? The one that hurt her? **The one that called her odd names she had never heard of? ****_The one that told her she would never be special?_**

...The one that took away her little sister?

"S-Severus?" Petunia spluttered.

"Mm-hmm."

There was an awkward silence in which the skinny boy said "Hewwo, Sevwerus!" and the fat boy punched him.

"Mu-um! I gotsta go to da bafwoom!" cried the fat one.

"Harry, Dudley, it's over there!"

The two toddlers scurried away, knocking down displays as they went, as Petunia barked at the skinny boy to pick them up.

"So, are they yours?" asked Snape, already knowing the answer.

"Dudders is, of course, but Harry is the offspring of my sister and her tramp of a husband."

Then Snape said something he would regret for the rest of his life. But he did it for Lily.

"I suppose that James wasn't... that bad, was he, Tunie?"

"That's the only thing we ever agreed about, Snape, that that Potter boy was a horrible prat! And don't call me 'Tunie'. That name died with Lily."

Tears welled up in both of their hard eyes. "Well, he's dead and gone now, so I guess we should honor his memory."

"Yes," mumbled Petunia, "I suppose so."

"I, um, well- I knew Harry was Lily's the minute I saw his eyes. They were Lily's eyes for sure. That's- that's part of the reason I loved her so much, did you know that? Her eyes... And her laugh. But the rest of him is all Potter, from his hair to his knees."

"I- I loved her too, Severus. I never hated her, even when I said I did. You can't ever hate someone like Lily."

"You're right, Petunia. You really are."

Then the two said there goodbyes, unaware of the two cousins crouching in the corner, crammed near the pasta, listening to every word that had been said.

Harry approved of Snape.

Dudley didn't.

*********************************************************L+S=3***********************************************************

"Here are your stupid, god-forsaken lemon drops, you senile old fool!" screamed Snape, sobbing, throwing the candies on to the desk, where they landed with a _*crunch!* _"Guess who I saw at that Muggle store? _GUESS_, OLD MAN!"

"Who?" asked Dumbledore calmly, checking the lemon drop he was opening for breakage.

"Petunia Evans, THAT'S WHO!"

"Well, would you like to talk about it?"

"NO! OF COURSE NOT, YOU BLOODY OLD _IDIOT! _I _HATED _IT, AND I'M NEVER SHOPPING FOR YOU AND YOUR EFFING MUGGLE CANDY AGAIN!"

"Good. Very well then, if that is all, I will escort you out, and ask that you do not throw my lemon drops around, as they are very prone to breaking."

Then Dumbledore pushed Snape out and sucked on a lemon drop idly, never knowing what it took to get that little yellow sweet into his mouth.


End file.
